Losing at oil roulette

Many of us assumed that oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico had to meetstringent government safety regulations and included layers of fail-safedevices to prevent a massive oil spill. Now we know we were wrong.It is increasingly clear that government oversight of BPs Deep Horizondrilling rig was fatally lax. It is also clear that BP cut corners andsacrificed safety in favor of speed. Even when it was obvious that safetydevices were breaking down or malfunctioning, BP just plowed ahead. Whenthe inevitable breakdowns occurred, there was nothing to stop thecascading events that killed 11 workers, blew up the rig and spewedmillions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.Its not as if we werent warned. Environmentalists, especially those withknowledge of the ecological sensitivity of Gulf Coast wetlands, have beentelling us for decades that even a single failure of one of the 4,000 rigsin the Gulf could be catastrophic.The drill baby drill people tried to assure us otherwise. We need moredomestic production, they said, and we need it quickly. In fact, wecontinue to import nearly twice as much oil as we produce domestically, sonew exploration and drilling had its fans. And renewable energy sourceslike solar, wind, geothermal and fuel cells seem to be perpetually miredin the demonstration and hypothetical stages.Thats a shame, because that attitude guarantees we will continue to belocked into a self-destructive dependence on oil for the foreseeablefuture. That means more pollution, more oil spill disasters and, evenworse, more reliance on unstable and unfriendly governments that exportoil.Even if you believe global climate change is a conspiratorial myth and ouraddiction to petroleum products is not destroying the planet, the folks onwhom we must rely for our daily oil fix should give all of us pause.The number one supplier of our imported oil is Canada, our old andreliable friend. Thats a good thing. Second on the list of importers isMexico, another old but, alas, less reliable friend. But even in theworst of times it seems unlikely they will ever turn off the spigot.Beyond those two it starts to get plenty murky.The next three biggest suppliers areNigeria, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.Nigeria, the eighth most populous country on the planet, has recentlyreturned, sort of, to democratic rule after years of revolving doormilitary coups and juntas. Unfortunately, their last national election,in 2007, was marred by fraud and violence. Give them credit for trying,but they are less than a completely reliable ally.Venezuela is led by Hugo Chavez who professes to hate us and isperpetually ranting about potential American invasions of his country. Hehas stripped his country of any semblance of freedoms as we know them, istrying to develop a strong military and has installed himself as presidentfor as long as he pleases. He loves the money we provide for his oil butlittle else about us and would likely jump at the chance to do us harm ifhe could.Then theres Saudi Arabia. They are most assuredly not our friends in anysense of the word, regardless of what they might claim and no matter howmuch our government sucks up to them. We import just under one millionbarrels of oil every day from Saudi Arabia in exchange for which we paythem tens of millions of dollars every day. As I write this the price isabout $72/barrel so todays bill will be more than $66 million. We owethem about that much every single day, day after day. In return, theSaudi government uses some of that money to finance terrorists committedto our destruction. The Saudi royal family has made a Faustian bargain in which theyfinance the most extreme, cult-like version of Islam known asWahhabism. They do it quietly, with their checkbooks, sponsoring andpaying for madrasahs (schools) that teach this virulently violentinterpretation of the Quran. The Wahhabists have plucked the mostisolationist and angry sections of their holy book and turnedthemselves into a bastardized version of Islam. In short, if you dontagree with Wahhabi principles, they believe you are an infidel and mustbe killed. Not could be killed or even should be killed but must bekilled. They have set up most of the terrorist training camps, gave usthe 9/11 attackers, and are responsible for most of the terrorist actsat which we cringe while watching the evening news. Their believersmake up the core of both al Qaida and the Taliban. Their intent is aworld that agrees with their belief system or else. And we helpfinance them.We are now trapped. We know that additional oil production here willinevitably lead to new disasters. Were pretty sure the pollution causedby burning fossil fuels is slowly destroying the environment. We knowthat continued dependence on foreign oil forces us to rely on those whowish us harm.It is long past time both the government and industry quit delaying, quitmaking excuses and make the commitment and dedicate the resourcesnecessary to whatever sustainable, renewable energy can move us away fromour addiction to oil and other fossil fuels. Were playing Russianroulette with our future and every year we fail to make a real commitmentto alternatives adds another live round to the chamber. Eventually, andit will be sooner rather than later, the gun will be fully loaded andthere will be no escape when we pull the trigger.

Stephen Tuttle is a political consultant who formerly wrote for the ArizonaRepublic.